5.  The applicant was born in 1956 and lives in Aš.
6.  At about 3 a.m. on 1 May 2010 the applicant was on his way home from a bar where he had been drinking alcohol when a municipal police patrol stopped him and asked to see his identity card. He had no identity documents with him, but told the patrol that he lived just fifty metres away and that they could accompany him home where he could prove his identity. The patrol, however, insisted on taking him by car to Aš police station, where he provided his name and address. He was then told that he had committed the administrative offence (přestupek) of urinating in a public place. A breathalyser test gave a result of 2 per mille of alcohol in the applicant’s blood.
7.  The following events at the police station are disputed between the parties.
8.  After establishing the applicant’s identity and the level of alcohol in his blood, the police invited the applicant to enter another room. He refused to do so and asked why he had been brought to the police station. A police officer twisted his arm, handcuffed him and led him to a police cell where the applicant was handcuffed to an iron ring on the wall. He attempted to free himself but was punched in the chest, the back of his head and his cheek bone. He was left handcuffed to the wall by one hand.
9.  After some time, the applicant started kicking in order to attract the attention of some other police officers who might free him. However, the same police officer entered the cell and knocked him to the ground. He then knelt on the applicant’s chest and thumped him several times with both hands. The police officer then stretched the applicant’s free arm and handcuffed it to an iron ring on the other side of the cell. He kicked the applicant’s legs so that he was hanging from his stretched arms. Lastly, he shackled the applicant’s legs and hit him several times on his back. Another police officer was watching these events in the cell. After being left in this agonising position for about thirty minutes, the applicant was told to go home.
10.  According to the Government, the applicant was verbally aggressive when he was taken to the police station and was therefore placed in a cell. In the cell he started kicking the door and made a hole 6 cm in diameter. The value of the door was 500 Czech korunas (CZK) (24 euros (EUR)). The police officers reacted by attaching one of the applicant’s hands to an iron ring on the wall in order to prevent him from destroying the equipment in the cell. As the applicant did not stop kicking and shouting, his other hand was handcuffed to another iron ring on the opposite wall. Since even that did not prevent the applicant from kicking and trying to reach the door, his hands were handcuffed behind his back and attached to an iron ring, and his legs were tied with a leather strap. After fifty minutes in the cell, the applicant calmed down and was released.
11.  While still at the police station, the applicant called an ambulance and asked for a medical certificate confirming his injuries. However, the doctor who arrived examined him quickly and concluded that his injuries were old and that he did not need any medical treatment.
12.  Later in the morning of 1 May 2010 the applicant went to a hospital. The doctor issued a certificate stating that he had some old injuries on his back but also fresh injuries on his back, neck and head, bruises on his wrists and a painful chest. He was given sixteen days’ sick leave.
13.  On the same day, the applicant took the medical certificate to Cheb police station and lodged a criminal complaint that he had been ill-treated by the police.
14.  After questioning the applicant, the police sent the file to the Police Inspectorate (Inspekce Policie) on 3 May 2010. The file also contained a report on an inspection of the applicant’s cell in Aš police station conducted by the police officers responsible for the alleged ill-treatment.
15.  On 19 May 2010 the Police Inspectorate requested an expert opinion on the origin of the applicant’s injuries. The report of 25 May 2010 by Doctor C. was based on photographs of the applicant and stated that the injuries to the wrist had probably been caused by the applicant trying to release his hands from the handcuffs. The expert did not find any other injuries that could have been sustained at the police station.
16.  On 26 May 2010 the applicant asked the Plzeň-město prosecutor’s office to supervise the investigation. He complained, inter alia, that the police officers had not yet been questioned, which had given them time to coordinate their statements. He also requested several other investigative measures.
17.  On 5 June 2010 the applicant further complained that some colleagues of the police officers against whom he had lodged his criminal complaint had been threatening him in order to make him withdraw his complaint. On 22 June 2010 the supervising prosecutor ordered the Police Inspectorate to commission a complex expert report on the causes of the applicant’s injuries, and to question the applicant again in order to explain certain inconsistencies in his statements.
18.  On 21 July and 28 July 2010 the Police Inspectorate questioned the police officers present at Aš police station on the night in question. They all testified that they had not ill-treated the applicant and that they had handcuffed and shackled him in the cell for his own protection and the protection of police property because he had been drunk and kicking the cell door.
19.  The Inspectorate further questioned two persons from the bar, who testified that when the applicant had left the bar in the morning of 1 May 2010 he had been slightly inebriated but had had no injuries. The following day the applicant had told them that he had been beaten up by the police and had shown them his injuries.
20.  The Inspectorate also questioned the doctor who had gone to the police station after the events. She stated that the applicant had been drunk and had been insulting the people around him. She had seen injuries on his back, but they had been of earlier origin. His wrists had been red, probably from the handcuffs.
21.  In the meantime, on 29 July 2010, the Karlovy Vary Regional Directorate of Police had written to the applicant stating that his complaints had been found to be unsubstantiated and that the internal investigation had therefore been closed. The letter provided very few reasons.
22.  On 28 August 2010, in the Inspectorate’s ongoing investigation, an expert submitted a report on the nature and origin of the applicant’s injuries, based on information in the investigation file. He stated that the fresh injuries must have been sustained at the police station, but he ruled out that they could have resulted from beatings. In his view, the injuries to the applicant’s head had been caused by a hard surface, such as a wall. The bruises on his wrists had been caused by straining to free his hands from the handcuffs, which were attached to a fixed object.
23.  On 6 September 2010 the applicant asked the Police Inspectorate to provide him with all the documentation in the file in order to commission another expert opinion, pointing out the serious deficiencies of the one commissioned by the Inspectorate. He also complained that for unknown reasons his notification of 5 June 2010 was missing from the investigation file.
24.  On 13 September 2010 the Police Inspectorate closed the investigation, finding that no crime had been committed. According to them, the events as submitted by the applicant contradicted the version of the events of all the other witnesses. Moreover, two doctors had found that the applicant’s injuries had been old. Relying on the expert opinion, it stated that the newer injuries could not have been caused in the way described by the applicant, that the wrist injuries had been self-inflicted by straining on the handcuffs and the other injuries could have been caused by low-intensity aggression.
25.  On 20 September 2010 the applicant appealed against the decision, challenging in particular the expert opinion as incorrect and one-sided.
26.  On 18 November 2010 the Plzeň-město district prosecutor’s office, having reviewed the investigation file, dismissed the applicant’s appeal, finding the conclusions of the Police Inspectorate correct. It referred to the facts that were unfavourable to the applicant: it had been established from an alcohol test that he had been drunk; the ambulance doctor had testified that he had been insulting everybody around him; and he had damaged the door of the cell.
27.  On 30 December 2010 the applicant obtained an opinion by another certified expert whom he had commissioned himself. The report concluded that the applicant had suffered injuries from hitting a hard surface. However, it had not been possible to conclude, or rule out for that matter, whether those injuries had been caused by active force (the applicant being hit) or passive force (the applicant falling). If they had been caused by active force, it had been of medium intensity.
28.  On 21 February 2011 the Constitutional Court dismissed an appeal lodged by the applicant against the decision to discontinue the investigation, holding that there was no constitutional right to have a third person prosecuted and that such a decision remained within the exclusive power of the prosecution.
29.  On an unspecified date the applicant complained to the Ombudsman about his treatment by the police. On 7 December 2010, the Ombudsman issued a report finding that the police had violated the Police Act in several respects.
30.  First, on account of his intoxication, the applicant should not have been placed in a cell without a prior medical examination. Secondly, his shackling in the cell had been disproportionate. Moreover, while shackled, the applicant had had no possibility of calling for assistance other than by shouting or kicking the walls or the door, because he could not have reached the bell. His access to the bell was blocked when the police officers closed the cell door in addition to the iron grille of the cell. Moreover, the tying of his ankles had not been noted in the police records. In the Ombudsman’s view, there had been no legal grounds for detaining the applicant at all, so it looked as though he had been detained as a punishment for his drunken behaviour.
31.  The Ombudsman noted that it was not his primary task to investigate the alleged ill-treatment of the applicant, as there were other bodies, such as the Police Inspectorate, to do so. He nevertheless expressed some doubts about the veracity of the version of the events as submitted by the police officers. He noted that the doctor who had gone to the police station and found that the applicant’s injuries had been old had examined him only very briefly, whereas the following morning another doctor had found new injuries on the applicant’s body. In his view, assuming that the injuries had been caused by the applicant himself when straining to free his hands from the handcuffs and falling to the ground, the question arose as to whether, given his condition, he should have been placed in a cell and shackled at all.
32.  In reaction to the Ombudsman’s report, the Department of Internal Inspection of the Karlovy Vary Regional Directorate of Police reopened the investigation into the applicant’s detention.
33.  In its report of 9 March 2011, it concluded that police officer J.B. had breached the provisions of the Police Act by placing the applicant, who had been intoxicated, in a police cell without a prior medical examination. As a result disciplinary proceedings against J.B. were instituted.
34.  On 30 March 2011 the head of the Cheb Police Department found J.B. guilty of placing the applicant, who had been intoxicated, in a police cell without a prior medical examination and of not having reported appropriately and fully the circumstances of the applicant’s detention in the official record. As a punishment he received a written caution. The operative part of the decision reads:
“[J.B. has been found guilty] of a disciplinary offence of failing to observe the ‘basic obligations of an officer’ stipulated in section 45(1)(a) [of Act no. 361/2003] by not complying with ‘service discipline’ under section 46(1) of the Act. On 1 May 2010, while detaining Vladimír Kummer, he did not secure his medical examination and placed him in a police cell even though [the applicant] was evidently under the influence of alcohol. He thus contravened section 31(1) of the Police Act (law no. 273/2008) and section 12(6)(b) of Act no. 159/2009. He further contravened section 109(1) of the Czech Police Act by not sufficiently describing the facts of the detention in the official record, in which he did not include all the circumstances of the detention.”
Subsequently, the ombudsman closed the case under section 18(2) of Act no. 349/1999.
35.  On 13 May 2011 the applicant instituted civil proceedings against the State under Act no. 82/1998. He requested compensation for the violation of his right to liberty and freedom from ill-treatment. The proceedings are pending.